


Between the Moon and You

by deathbymalik



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Love at First Sight, Mutual Pining, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3838300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathbymalik/pseuds/deathbymalik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Zayn Malik AU about love and faith, and having faith in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Glow

Her smile is the first thing he sees. As he pulls on the collar of his olive green kurta, he raises his chin and gaze from the floor, and the first thing Zayn sees as he makes his way towards his family is the white of her smile. It’s vibrant, but at the same time, as delicate as the jasmine flowers growing in the garden. It’s beautiful, ethereal. He thinks that if _angels_ smiled, it would look something like hers. And although he knows he should, he can’t seem to look away.

She’s setting down flutes of his mum’s famous sweet golden milk on the long table that extends the entire length of the garden. She weaves through the chairs that his relatives are sat at, smiling and waiting on them as they smile back and pinch her pink cheeks as they say _‘bahut bahut shukriya’_ and Zayn wonders who she is. His Auntie Zileh lightly touches her palm to the girl’s arm and pulls her into a whisper, and as the two pull away she smiles again and the air in Zayn’s lungs seems to evaporate inside of him.

He can’t remember the last time a girl took his breath away, when he found himself literally paralyzed by her beauty and lost in her smile. He had almost forgotten what it felt like until now -to have your heart race a thousand beats per minute only to stop suddenly, to have every thought escape from your brain, to lose any sense of who you are at all, because _she’s_ just taken everything from you. He had almost forgotten what it was like to find a woman so exquisite, so immaculate, that just looking at her the wrong way could break her.

It’s not a feeling he thinks he wants to forget.

After what feels like ages, Zayn makes it up to the house and finally [taking every ounce of strength still left in him] looks away from the girl with the golden smile, and spots his mum at the head of the table, wearing a beautiful black and gold _salwar kameez_. Zayn smiles and heads toward her, picking up his pace because it’s been too long since he’s seen her. And without warning he throws his arms around her shoulders, hugging her from behind and kissing her once on the cheek.

“Eid mubarak, ammi,” he whispers and his mum turns around suddenly, standing to hug her son as tightly -Zayn thinks- as she possibly can. It doesn’t take long for the others to realize that he’s arrived, and in no time at all is he thrown between all of them as they shower him with kisses and hugs and pats on the back. It’s nice to be home -to see all of his aunties and uncles and cousins. He doesn’t see them as often as he’d like, and as he says his greetings to all of them, he realizes just how happy he is to be there.

His cousin, Jawaad, stands to bring him into an embrace. “Sick kurta, bro,” he says into his ear, and Zayn laughs and pushes him away because he seems to be wearing (almost) the exact same thing.

It’s the first time in a long time Zayn has worn a kurta to Eid al-Fitr. In fact, it’s the first time in a long time he’s been home at all for the occasion. And as he eyes the food already spread out on the table to be feasted on, he realizes just _how_ much he’s missed it. He doesn’t hesitate to grab himself some _gulab jamun_ and a plate of _ras malai_ , and as he sits down to eat to his hearts content, his older sister doesn’t miss the opportunity to take the piss out of it.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you haven’t eaten in a month,” Doniya jokes as she sits down next to him, and Zayn amuses her as he fakes a laugh.

“You do know better,” he says, wiping away milk from his upper lip, “and you _do_ know that I haven’t eaten for a month.”

“You fasted?” She hardly seems to believe him.

“Surprised?”

“Well,” Doniya rests an elbow on the table, “since when is my little brother such a good Muslim?”

Zayn scoffs, but smiles just the same. “Since when are _you?”_

She punches him softly in the arm and they both laugh together, because it is quite true that they aren’t the poster children of Islam. Zayn doesn’t pray as often as he should (which really means _never_ ). Doniya drinks more whiskey on a Friday than Zayn has in his lifetime. Zayn smokes and fucks and has tattoos that cover so many inches of his skin that if you truly looked, at first glance, you would never think he was Muslim, or at least a practicing one.

And maybe he isn’t. But he figures as long as he stays true to his morals and values, the ones that his parents raised him to believe and to hold, and that his faith in Allah (swt) never wavers, that at the end of his life he will be granted _jannah_ just like the rest of his brothers and sisters.

It’s then that Doniya steals a _jaman_ from his plate before standing quickly, leaving Zayn to whine as she saunters away. But now as he stares down to an empty plate, he pushes back his chair and stands as well, taking his plate into the house and leaving his loud and boisterous family behind him as he closes the sliding door.

Zayn does this often -hides from the rest of them to get his alone time. Even though he hasn’t seen his family in months, Zayn still needs his solitude. He needs the peace and quiet to regroup, to think about things. He’ll think about his sisters and how beautiful they look today, about his cousins who’ve seemed to grow up all too quickly. He’ll think about his _baba_ , who hasn’t changed at all since he left home for university three years ago. His baba still wears the same knowing smile when he looks at his son -like he knows exactly who Zayn is and what Zayn needs and what he’s feeling in that very moment.

Zayn remembers that smile growing up -when he would come home with a scraped knee from fighting bullies in elementary, or when his mum would question him for escaping to his room immediately after supper, or when he would come home smelling like tobacco during his first year of college. His dad would just look at him stroking two fingers over his chin, pause for a moment to think, and eventually sigh with his smile and shake his head. His father never scolded him, or yelled at him. He would only look at him and smile that Yaser Malik smile, almost like he knew there was no reason to reprimand him. Like he knew that Zayn would do what Zayn wanted to do, like he understood _why_ Zayn did and said the things he did.

Still today, nothing has changed. Zayn will sit with his entire family at the table and be asked thousands of questions from each of them -and he’ll answer politely- but when he’s asked to elaborate Zayn’ll catch his father’s eye and see the smile on his face. And Zayn will suddenly feel less pressured by it all, because it’s like somehow his baba understands. Somehow, he _gets_ that Zayn doesn’t want to talk too much about it, but that it’s okay. He _can_. And before Zayn goes further into detail about his adventures and new life in London, he’ll smile back at his dad, because God knows Zayn couldn’t have made it this far without him.

An unspoken bond is what Zayn guesses it is.

Zayn finds himself in the dimly lit kitchen soon enough, ready to place his empty plate in the sink when he finds someone already scrubbing the china and setting it aside. She’s wearing a familiar long-sleeved maroon _lehengra_ and dark chocolate brown hair falls down her back in a perfect wave. Zayn stops short, frozen as he takes in the silhouette that hovers over the sink, moving so graceful and soft that it’s like watching a perfectly rehearsed ballet. He knows it’s her. The girl that sent a flame through his skin when he caught her smile. And once again, he finds himself incapable of looking away.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he suddenly hears a whisper in his ear and stunned, Zayn whips around to see Doniya silently chuckling at him.

But the ballerina at the sink turns around, and for a moment, Zayn forgets how to breathe.

“Oh, hey Don,” she says, her voice like a songbird. She takes one glance at Zayn before returning to the dishes. Suddenly there’s not enough oxygen in the world.

Doniya slaps him on the shoulder before meeting the girl at the counter. “You know my mum would have a heart attack if she knew you were doing this right now.”

She chuckles. “It’s honestly the least I could do.”

“Well don’t _worry_ about it,” Doniya turns the faucet off and takes a plate out of her hand, “come out and join us. Everyone’s wondering where you went!”

And the girl laughs again and now he’s dizzy -if her laugh isn’t the most intoxicating sound he’s ever heard in his life.

“Alright, alright,” she concedes and dries her hands on the hand towel, beautiful _mehndi_ designs covering her olive skin, “I’m kind of hungry again anyway.”

The girls start towards Zayn as they head back outside to the garden and Zayn realizes he still hasn’t moved an inch since he’s stepped inside the kitchen. He feels like an idiot. A complete wanker. He could have at least set down the plate he had brought in to clean. But he doesn’t budge. He can’t. He’s _frozen_.

“Oh,” Doniya says suddenly, “this is Zayn, by the way. My absolute shit little brother.” She ruffles her hand through his hair. “Brother, this is Alia.”

He opens his mouth to speak but- silence. He wants to kick himself in the face.

“Nice to meet you,” Alia says sweetly, cheeks blushing a rosy pink and Zayn’s heart feels like it’s about to float out of his body. She turns to Don, “So this is the infamous Zayn I’ve heard so much about.”

Zayn blinks. What?

Doniya laughs. “The very one!” She grabs Alia by the arm, “Come on, let’s go eat some more.” And then Alia is whisked away by his sister and Zayn needs another minute to return back to himself.

The thing is, he’s never seen anything like it before -the beauty this girl possesses. She’s radiant, exquisite. So absolutely stunning that it’s left him a complete and utter mess. He almost feels wrecked by her. By her caramel brown eyes and soft soft skin, that had glowed even in the dark kitchen. And suddenly he wonders what she must look like in the moonlight. Against the sunset. At first morning light that cracks through the open curtain.

But he needs to push it away -push all of those thoughts right out of his head because he shouldn’t be thinking them at all. He needs to get it together, to put his heart back inside his body and take a bloody step.

It takes a minute, but eventually, his plate is finally in the sink and he can breathe again. He stays there for a moment as he tries to talk himself into thinking about something -some _one_ \- else and stares out the window, watching his cousin Daniaal, and little sister Safaa, start to kick a football in the garden. Zayn chuckles to himself as he watches his sister struggle to keep from dirtying her formal clothing.

But then he sees the long swish of maroon from the corner of his eye, and unable to fight it, looks toward the dress that now sits in the chair next to his baba. And when his father starts to laugh so hard that his tongue pushes against his teeth and crinkles form by his eyes, he looks to the girl who caused his baba such happiness.

And then just like that, his heart is above his head.  
And his breath is somewhere in the clouds.

 

+++

 

  **Two Days Before**

 

Alia Khan can practically taste the summer wind as it blows against her cheek. It tastes warm, and fresh -like a bite of hot cherry pie that cools in your mouth as you take it with a dollop of whipped cream. Or like pieces of pineapple that’ve lingered in the sun, yet still cool enough to feel the juice of it between your teeth. She thinks it tastes like oranges and _Stella_ , like tandoori chicken and tabouleh, like a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade that hasn’t been chilled just yet. 

Alia tastes all of that in the summer wind and she realizes -as the traffic comes to a halt- that she is _starving_. _Ramadan_ has taken a lot out of her, she suddenly notices, as the fatigue really begins to creep up on her as she crosses the street. It’s the first year she’s committed to fasting in awhile, as university these past three years hasn’t really been the place for her to partake as much as she’s wanted to. Because when you live with other uni students that _aren’t_ Muslim, that order pizza at all times of the day and have boxes of donuts just lying around, it’s kind of hard to resist. And as much as her _Baba_ would tell her to be strong, to trust in Allah enough to turn away from the box of biscuits that sit in her fridge, she could never do it. Chocolate _always_ won out. 

But this year she’s living with Doniya. And Doniya, _alhamdulillah_ , is fasting just like Alia. They decided it together, when just before the first night Alia came home from her internship with determination and told Doniya, “I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m doing it.”

“You’re doing what?” Doniya asked as she lounged on their sofa and idly flipped through channels on the telly. 

“Ramadan. Fasting.” Alia fell next to her best friend on the couch. “Being a good Muslim.”

Doniya turned to face her. “Seriously?”

Alia nodded. “Seriously. It’s been like, five years. And my baba is ashamed of it, I know it.”

Although the latter part probably wasn’t true. Muhammad Khan was proud of everything his brilliant and favorite daughter did, and Alia knew that. Alia could’ve come home without the degree she moved overseas to attain and her father would’ve _still_ praised her for even trying in the first place. 

“Well,” Doniya flipped on a _Sex and the City_ marathon, “if you feel like you should, then yeah, I say go for it.”

“Go for it?” Alia scoffed, “You make it sound like I’m going after a guy or something.”

Doniya giggled.

“But Don, I’m not joking.” Alia tucked her legs onto the couch, and got into her s _erious_ mode. “And like, I think we should do it together.”

Doniya’s smile seemed to slightly fade. 

“Wouldn’t you feel better about every _haram_ thing we’ve done if we did this? Like, I know it’s not an excuse but we should do _something._ I mean, you drink like an Irishman and I smoke like I’m still living in Colorado...we never pray. Okay, _sometimes_ I do, but it’s not like we do _anything_ for Allah and I think we should. And like, how are we supposed to ask Him for forgiveness, when we don’t do _anything_ He’s asked?”

Doniya stayed quiet, but bit on her lip like she was thinking it over. And after a few moments, when she took in a deep breath and gave a heavy sigh, Alia knew she had convinced her that it was the right thing to do. 

A month later, and Alia is about to give in, as the nightly dinners and early breakfasts just haven’t been cutting it for her. Because unlike previous years [when she was with her family back in the States and they all partook together] she doesn’t have the grand feasts at sundown and the lavish buffets before sunrise. All her and Doniya have are the microwave dinners and the few delicacies they’ve managed to spend extra change on at the market. And sometimes when it _does_ come time to eat, Alia isn’t even in the mood, her appetite curbed to the point that she doesn’t even have one. The most she’s had this week are two _Nature Valley_ bars before she’s head off to work and that, she thinks, _can’t_ be healthy. 

“Doniya, I’m gonna eat this entire table, I swear to you I’m gonna.” Alia announces as she finally arrives at her flat -the summer wind now long behind her but the taste of it still lingering on her tongue. It’s the Wednesday before Eid, and she knows she only has two more days and she’s done it. But in this moment, she’s going absolutely mad, her stomach aching with pain as she has an hour till sundown. 

“Drink water, babe,” Doniya advises, “don’t be stupid about this.”

_Too late for that_ , Alia thinks, but grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and downs the entire thing in mere seconds. She _maybe_ could’ve held off for an hour, but then again, maybe she couldn’t’ve, so she doesn’t feel so bad for making sure she didn’t pass out. 

“So tomorrow,” Doniya lifts her head from her laptop that sits on the island of their kitchen, “I say we leave at like seventeen-hundred hours, get there around nineteen-ish? What do you think?”

Alia heaves a heavy breath and nods. “Yeah, sounds fine. Yeah.”

“And you promise you’re not gonna come up with some stupid excuse not to come this time?”

Alia laughs. “Promise.”

“Good. Then tomorrow we go to Bradford.” Doniya smiles and her eyes light up and Alia can tell she’s excited to go home. And if she’s being honest with herself, Alia can’t deny that she’s excited to go with her. She’s met the Malik’s plenty of times, when they’ve come to visit Doniya over the past couple years. They’ve treated Alia just as one of their own and Alia has even joked that Trisha Malik has been like her second mom, almost like her ‘ _home-away-from-home_ mom’ since Caroline Khan can’t really do much from Boulder, Colorado. 

Alia absolutely adores Doniya’s family. Well, the ones she’s met anyway. The brother Doniya claims to have is still a looming mystery to her. 

“Oh! And you’ll finally be able to meet Zayn!” Don chirps as she closes her computer shut. 

And there it is, the mention of the mysterious brother. “Two years has it been?” Alia asks, almost sarcastically. She’s known Doniya for two years, has been _best friends_ with her for two years, has met her parents and sisters a countless amount of times in _two years_. And not once has she met this so-called _Zayn Malik_.

Doniya laughs. “I’ve _told_ you. He’s busy, like, traveling the world and all that.”

“Oh right, yes. He goes to Oxford,” she starts to count on her fingers, “he’s studying English. He’s studied abroad in America, South Africa, and Australia. He’s been to Thailand and China and Lahore. He’s volunteered with _Save The Children_. He’s a goddamn Saint!...But he can never visit his sister who lives two hours away.” 

“He’s busy!” Doniya argues for her brother, “Seriously, he hasn’t been home in _ages_.”

Alia rolls her eyes and waves her friend away. “Whatever, whatever. At least I finally get to meet the fucking prodigy.”

They both laugh then, and poke fun at their own expense at how unaccomplished they seem compared to Don’s perfect, intelligent, academic, worldly brother. And Alia figures he must be one of those uptight, conceited know-it-all pricks who corrects your grammar every chance he gets. She dresses him in a grey _Ralph Lauren_ polo and navy blue trousers with a powder blue sweater thrown over his shoulders. She puts glasses on his face (although she hardly remembers the one picture she’s seen of him) and hears a posh accent in his voice, and she imagines he’s that one relative that thinks they’re superior to everybody else because they _‘got out’_ and _'made something of themselves.’_

But these are all just speculations. 

Maybe he’s none of those things.  
Maybe he’s all of those things.  
Maybe he’s someone else entirely. 

Maybe Alia shouldn’t be thinking about it so much. 

 

 

+++

 

 

“I think my brother likes you,” Doniya says as she shoves a biscuit into her mouth. 

The party is dying down now, with most of the extended family already gone and just a few relatives left as they help clean up the house. The fairy lights that hang through the garden are now lit against the night sky, and the stars are barely visible in the purple clouds above their heads. The sliver of the crescent moon peeks out from just over the roof of the house, and as Doniya and Alia sit out on the green lawn, picking at the last of the desserts they had assembled on a plate, Alia can’t help but stare at the thin silver line in the dark sky. It’s just a big giant rock -scientifically speaking- but it’s mesmerizing. 

“Alia, I’m not kidding,” Doniya laughs, “I think he fancies you.” 

“And I think you’re mad.” Although she’s barely listening, her mind is somewhere on the moon. 

“Alright,” Doniya sing-songs, “I’m just saying...”

“Saying what?” she asks, none of Doniya’s words registering in her brain. 

“That he likes you!”

Her sudden outburst startles Alia and she jumps a bit in surprise. Suddenly, she’s back on Earth. “Wait, what? Sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”

Doniya huffs and rolls her eyes. “Clearly. I was _saying_ , my brother likes you.”

Alia let’s out a noise that sounds something like a gasp and a laugh all at the same time. “And why would you think _that?_ I’ve only said three words to him.”

“Because I caught him _staring_ at you when you were in the kitchen.”

“Maybe he was trying to figure out who I was?”

“Or maybe,” Doniya reasons, “he likes you.” As if it’s the only logical explanation. 

But Alia can’t let herself believe that, no matter how much her friend tries to convince her otherwise. Because Zayn- Zayn is _not at all_ what Alia had expected. Yes, she had seen a picture of him once before but if she remembers correctly it was his sixth form yearbook picture, and it was so long ago that most of the image had escaped her memory. In any case, she hadn’t expected Doniya’s mysterious little brother to look like _that_ -like he was made from both heaven _and_ hell. Like he was both cut from diamonds _and_ carved from stone. That he would be so out-of-worldly handsome that Alia’s heart did a thing the first time she caught his gaze. 

No, _he_ does not like Alia, and probably never will. 

“Think we should head back and help clean up?” Alia asks, hoping Doniya will say yes so she can focus her thoughts on something other than her best friend’s brother. When she nods her head, Alia blesses the moon and blesses the stars.

And when she makes it to the house and he’s nowhere in sight, she blesses the faint glow that’s started to shine behind her heart.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any questions or comments or anything you can find me at solomalik.tumblr.com! <3


	2. Lightning

When Zayn opens his eyes in the morning it takes him a second to realize where he is. As a slight drizzle taps at his window and he flips to his back from his stomach, pulling the _Hulk_ sheets tighter over his shoulders, Zayn slowly becomes aware that he is very much not in London, but at his home in Bradford. 

His room is smaller here, the walls a little bit closer together and the ceiling a tiny bit lower but Zayn thinks he kind of likes it. He feels safer -cozier. The rain swishes in the wind outside but Zayn feels so warm, so _good_. He usually wakes up moody in the mornings, so hesitant to get out of his bed because the cold air of his flat intimidates him. But here it’s different. He can fling off the sheets and his skin will still be warm. He can throw on a pair of joggers and just- _chill_. There are no pressures here. He doesn’t have a class to get to and he doesn’t have a manuscript to read over and there’s coffee already made for him downstairs. He knows because he can smell it. And _that_ , he thinks, is probably the best part of all of this. 

There are people who love him downstairs. Like really, truly love him. 

So he throws the sheets off his body and puts on a pair of black joggers that hang a little low on his hips and heads downstairs. His hair is a disheveled mess on his head and his eyes aren’t even fully open, but what does it matter when he’s here? It’s not like his family cares about what he looks like in the morning. 

Almost everybody is in the kitchen -his mum, his dad. Waliyha and Safaa and his cousin, Aaroosa, who had spent the night after their Eid party. They’re all reaching for pancakes and coffee and eggs and Zayn is overcome with joy. He can’t remember the last time he sat down for a real breakfast. 

“Morning, sunshine,” his mum kisses him on the cheek as he makes his way to her side. She pours him a mug of coffee and stirs in sugar and milk and Zayn kisses her once back. 

“Thanks, mummy,” he says as he takes his cup. He sits down next to Safaa who grabs for some orange juice. “And good morning to you,” he says to his sister as he throws an arm around her shoulders. 

But she shrugs him off and laughs. “You stink, don’t touch me!” 

Waliyha and Aaroosa join in on the laughter. Although Zayn thinks it’s more of a sniggering. 

“Yeah, you might want to wash that mane on your head,” Aaroosa chimes in. 

Zayn wonders why he thought they _wouldn’t_ take the piss out of his appearance. 

“So _anyway,”_ Waliyha says,“as I was saying before Zed stole everyone’s attention...”

“As always,” Safaa mumbles. Zayn lightly kicks her under the table and she smiles.

“Tomorrow I’m going to Manchester to stay with Doniya and Alia. We all three talked about it last night.”

Zayn looks up at the mention of _her_ name. 

“Don’t I get a say in what my daughter does with her days?” Trisha finally sits down at the table next to her husband and passes along a plate of toast. 

“Mum, _please?”_ Waliyha begs as she shoves eggs into her mouth. “Please, please, _please_.”

“Why do you wanna go so bad?” Zayn asks suddenly, although he knows it’s none of his business. She seems to think the same thing as she glares daggers back at him. 

“Mummy, _please_ ,” she begs again, batting her lashes and making a sad puppy-dog face and Zayn snorts. “Shut up, you arse!” she yells and tries to kick him until her father tells her, “Language, Wali.”

She shuts up after that -although she continues to sulk as she eats her breakfast. 

The six of them eat in silence after that. Spooning more food onto their plates and pouring more coffee into their mugs in the peace and quiet, and Zayn can’t say that he minds it -although his thoughts _do_ direct to the girl that he met last night. He wonders where she is. If her and Doniya caught an early train back or if they made their way to Bradford city centre. He did overhear that Doniya wanted to show her around. 

It’s then he hears the opening of a door upstairs and a loud thud of footsteps behind him and the entire table turns toward the sound to suddenly see Doniya round the corner of the kitchen in a frenzy, clad only in her pink robe and her hair half straight, half wavy.

“Doniya?” Trisha stands and questions her daughter.

Doniya doesn’t look up as she grabs a bag from the drawer and heads to the freezer to grab some ice. 

“Doniya,” Yaser turns in his chair and raises his brow as if to say _‘answer your mother.’_

Doniya turns quickly. “We’re straightening our hair. Alia touched the hot part of the iron and burnt herself. Just getting some ice.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head and Zayn presses his lips together to keep from asking if she’s okay. 

“Is she okay?” the words come out anyway. 

“She’s fine.”

Doniya closes the icebox and Zayn watches as she scurries away upstairs, keeping his gaze towards Doniya’s room and hoping Alia hasn’t herself too bad. Trisha sits back in her seat and Yaser turns back to the table. And after a moment, Safaa starts to giggle and Zayn snaps toward her. 

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she mutters and shakes her head, “nothing.”

She makes eye contact with Waliyha across the table and they both smile, as if there’s some silent joke that only they can hear. Zayn looks between them but decides to ignore it. He gave up trying to understand his sister’s secret language a long time ago. 

“So, when do you leave, Zayn?” Trisha gives her son an inquisitive eye and it makes Zayn sit a little taller. 

He clears his throat. “Not sure. Tomorrow, or Monday morning. I have a class Monday night, so.”

“What class?”

“Literary and cultural theory.”

“Oh, _smartypants_ ,” Aaroosa comments and his sisters laugh along with her. Zayn sends her a sarcastic smirk. 

“Well love, I’d love for you to stay one more day, you know that,” Trisha looks back to her plate and Zayn sighs. He knows he should, he would even _love_ to- but there are things back in London waiting for him. There’s his graduate work, his seminar notes that he needs to evaluate, a job that he kind of has to show up for, friends that have been badgering him to _‘come home already.’_

He’s been gone for a day if that says anything about their dependency. 

“We’ll see, mumma,” he says, taking his last bite of toast. 

When he finishes his breakfast, Zayn heads back up to his room to take a shower and clean himself up before anyone else might see him. Although when he thinks about it, he realizes that person is _Alia_ and Zayn wants to punch himself in the stomach. He shouldn’t care at all how she sees him. 

But he does. He really does and it’s the first time in a long time that he’s felt that.

His shower is a quick one. Although he takes his time to cover each inch of skin and deep clean the roots of his scalp, he’s in and he’s out within minutes and before he knows it, his hair is drying in a topknot on his head and he’s wearing a plain white tee and black skinnies that rip at the knees. And he doesn’t know what he’s ready for, but as he ties up his _Docs_ and makes his way back downstairs, he feels like he might be ready for anything. 

Except as he enters the living room, Alia is bent over the couch with her dark chocolate hair waving down her back and wearing jean cutoff shorts that show off her long smooth legs. And when she turns her face towards him as his boots squeak on the tile, Zayn thinks he might pass out. 

So maybe he’s ready for _most things_ , because he surely wasn’t ready for _that_. 

 

 

 +++

 

 

Alia feels the rustle of Doniya squirming on the sofa as she sits to peer over the top of it but Alia doesn’t turn toward her. She keeps her gaze on _him,_ and he just stares back. He looks effortlessly cool- in a white tee and black ripped jeans and Alia’s head dizzies as a whiff of his cologne creeps under her nose. It smells like mahogany and it’s weird, she knows, but she feels like he _should_ smell like that -all dark and rustic- and she thinks that maybe she thinks too much about things she shouldn’t. 

“Where you off to?” Doniya asks, eyebrow up.

Zayn puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “Not sure,” he quickly gazes back to Alia and then back to his sister, “might head to city centre.”

“Yeah?” Her eyes light up.

He nods. “What’s it to you?”

“Well, if it’s not a hassle,” her tone turns serious, “which it isn’t. You can take Alia with you.”

Alia can feel the flush in her cheeks. She feels like a small child, all quiet and unspoken as Doniya decides on her plans for the day. 

Zayn toes at the rug that peeks out from under the sofa. “Yeah uh, sure.” He shrugs and gives a small smile to Alia and she thinks she sees a faint blush in his cheeks but she can’t be sure -it could just be the lighting. 

“You not going or summat?” he turns back to Doniya.

“Can’t. Mum asked me to stay here and help cook for dinner with the Riach’s tonight. And I don’t want to keep Alia cooped up here all day.”

“Well if you want I can cook and you can-”

“No!” Doniya interrupts a little too loudly. Alia stares at her friend like she’s insane.

“I mean no,” she calms, “it’s okay. You and Alia should go. Besides, your cooking is shit.”

“I’ll have you know I’m an excellent chef,” Zayn points and Doniya scoffs and Alia has to hide a smile. She can’t help but think that Doniya is right.

“Whatever,” she waves and falls back to the couch. “You and Zayn go,” she says to Alia.

Alia looks to her friend, who has thrown an arm over her head and closed her eyes. “You sure about this? He said he’d-”

“No, no. You two go. Besides, Zayn hasn’t been down there in forever.”

Alia looks back to Zayn who has somehow made his way to stand right behind her. His cologne is all over her now, like a wave washing over her skin and Alia wants to bathe in it. Drown in it.

She needs to get a grip.

“Well if you’re down, I’m down,” she shrugs and Zayn nods.

“Let’s do it,” he says and cocks his head towards the front door. His hands haven’t left his pockets, and even as he starts to turn away, he keeps them snug in his jeans. 

Alia turns back. “Okay Don...I guess I’m going...”

“Bye!” she sings, opening her eyes to give Alia a wink. 

And then suddenly, Alia gets it. Her friend has gone absolutely mental. “You little-” she starts to say but is shushed as Doniya hits her on her forearm, on the one patch of skin she had burnt that morning. “Ow!” 

“Go have fun, yeah?”

Alia walks away with a roll of her eyes, shaking her head as she mutters, “Incredible.”

But when she looks up and sees Zayn standing there, waiting for her with a smile that makes Alia’s heart speed up and slow down all at the same time, she thinks exactly that. 

 

Incredible. 

 

 

 +++

 

 

Zayn shows Alia around Bradford like he never left. As they drive the streets of his old neighborhood on their way to the city centre, he points to each house and says out the last name of each family that lives there.

“The Malhotra’s.”

“The Foster’s.”

“The Patel’s.”

It’s almost like he’s testing himself, to see if he still remembers like he promised himself he would, and when they finally speed up onto the open road, he’s actually very impressed with how well he did. Even Alia gives him a round of applause as he slightly beams with pride, despite himself.

“Are you mocking me?” he laughs and shoots her a joking glare.

“Just my way of giving you an _A”_ she says, eyes bright with mischief.

“Should be an _A-plus_ , but. Whatever.” He shrugs with a smile and looks back to the road. They’re only a kilometer away from downtown and Zayn thinks that if he looks at her too long he won’t be able to pull away, and while dying with possibly the most beautiful girl by his side would be a way to go, he’d rather make it to their destination. 

“You were the kid that complained about getting a ninety-nine on exams, weren’t you?” Alia teases and Zayn has to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud. He doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction -because he was. He really was.

“And you were the kid that corrected the teachers spelling even when everybody knew what they meant, just to be a little shit, weren’t you?”

She, on the other hand, doesn’t hide her truth and laughs so loud that it resonates in his bones. He could listen to her laugh on a loop for the rest of his life, he thinks.

“I was,” she giggles, “I so was.”

Zayn pulls up onto the main road then, but as blue signs greet him with arrows pointing this way and that, he suddenly feels like maybe he _doesn’t_ remember everything. Or, maybe they’ve changed a few things since he’s been here. Because as he follows the arrow that says _City Park,_ everything around him is different. The buildings are newer and the trees are greener, and he can make out what looks like a lake in the middle of it all. So he pushes his chest against the steering wheel and drives with the most focused concentration -brow knit, lips pulled taut- only to hear a stifled chuckle from the seat next to him.

“Stop making fun of me,” he says through gritted teeth, although he’s not mad at all but actually very much amused.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she calms, “you’re just so-”

“Yeah?” He quickly glances at her and sees her cheeks red as pomegranate. She looks fucking adorable. 

“Funny,” she finishes.

Something tells Zayn that isn’t what she was going to say.

Zayn notices the clouds above them when they finally find a parking spot. They’re grey and ominous as they crawl over the city, and from the light rain earlier that morning, Zayn guesses more is on the way. He sighs as Alia makes her way next to him.

“Might rain,” he points to the sky. 

“ _Will_ rain.” She looks to him with a raised brow that suggests he might have said something dumb. And maybe he has, but he gets too lost somewhere in the depths of her eyes to say anything about it. He just thinks of how pretty she looks right now -her hair framing her perfectly pink cheekbones- and soon he feels a pool of heat in his belly and a buzzing in his skin, and he _has_ to look away. It would be much too dangerous (physically speaking) to let his thoughts continue. 

“Well let’s make our way around before it does, yeah?” Zayn waves out a hand for Alia to take the lead but she just stares at his open palm, and then back at him. He quickly realizes what it looks like.

He shoves his hand into his pocket. 

“Let’s just go,” he says, turning away completely. Stupid -he’s stupid. 

But as they make their way through the city, Zayn forgets about his mistake completely and he guesses she does too. Because she’s teasing him just as before and asking about his favorite restaurant as a kid, and when Zayn answers she asks if he’d like to visit. 

Now that he’s walking around it feels like the city he remembers again. There _have_ been many restorations to the area -prettier buildings, nicer sidewalks, a fucking mirror pool with something like a hundred fountains (or so he read on a sign)- but at the heart of it, it’s all still the same. If you stray away from the beaten path and down an alley what people _used_ to use as a street, you can find yourself back in the old Bradford -and Zayn likes it here. It smells like coconut and tamarind, and Aunties and Uncles are all bustling about with their kids as they set out for lunch. He can hear Hindi being shouted from one café to another, someone asking for onions, and when the whiff of  a woman’s jasmine perfume catches under his nostrils, Zayn wonders why it’s taken so long for him to come back. 

Alia walks ahead of him like she knows the way. Her head straight and direct as she strolls with a confidence that Zayn likes to think he has, too. He runs a bit to catch up with her. 

“Know where you’re going?”

“Nope!” she smiles up at him, “But I wouldn’t mind getting lost around here.”

Zayn chuckles. “Nothing like this in Manchester, then?”

“Not that I know of,” she sighs, “it’s magical here.”

“Sure is.”

Her brow furrows then. “So why’d you never come back?”

Zayn’s heart suddenly feels like it’s stabbing him through his chest. He has to clear his throat before he answers, “I’m here now.”

She shakes her head. “Not what I meant.”

Zayn takes a moment to think. He also takes a moment to wonder what _she’s_ thinking of him right in that very second. 

“You know...it’s just,” he scrambles.

“I’ve been busy-” he starts, the words falling out almost automatically, “Oxford wasn’t really the easiest uni to get through. I’ve been traveling with a lot of non-profit organizations. I pretty much _am_ a project manager for _Save The Children_.” He points left to signal Alia to turn. “After graduation, I started my graduate degree in London. I _moved_ to London. Got a job that I’m technically not even supposed to have as a student. I’ve pretty much been working my ass off for the last three- almost four years and I just haven’t had time.” 

He sounds a bit more exasperated than he intended to after he’s finished. He even has to count backwards from ten just to let his heart rate slow back down.

And after a silence, she finally says, “That does sound like a lot.”

“It is.”

Zayn can see a softness in her eyes -almost apologetic. He thinks that maybe she feels sorry for him, or maybe she just feels bad for getting him riled up, but he wants it to go away. He doesn’t want her to feel like that -not in the least bit, because as crazy as his life has been it’s all been worth it. He’s been able to land a good -no, fucking fantastic- job in London and with that he’s been able to give back to his family for all the ways they’ve supported him in his three years at Oxford. He does all the things he does not just because he cares about the causes, but what he gets in return in the feeling of hope. Hope that he can make the world a better place and hope that one day, his family will never have to worry about anything again. They gave so much of themselves to give him the opportunity to have the best education, the least he can do is give it all back. Every single fucking pound of it. 

So yeah, he’s worked his ass off and he’s exhausted more often than not. But nobody should feel bad for him. He loves what he does. He appreciates everything that he’s worked for, and of all people to feel sad for him, it will not be Alia.

It will not be her. This girl that makes him feel brand new, somehow.

So he tells her. As they finally find their way to his old favorite restaurant, sitting only after Zayn has hugged and caught up with Shahid, the owner that convinced Zayn to go to Oxford in the first place, he tells her every little bit of it -of all the things he’s sacrificed so that his parents wouldn’t have to anymore. Of all the things he’s trying to do to make it even better. 

And she listens. With all her heart, she listens.   
And for the first time in a long time, Zayn feels he’s finally home  _._

 

 

+++

 

 

“Want one?” Zayn holds out a chocolate Shahid had given them before they left the restaurant. His hair is pulled out of the topknot now, all loose and hanging over the right side of his face, and Alia thinks he looks more like a model on a runway than a pedestrian on a wobbly street. 

The chocolate he holds is wrapped in red foil with the golden words _Dark Chocolate_ running across it, and Alia swiftly nods and grabs it from his hand. She lets her fingers linger on his palm for a beat -just a quick second to feel his skin on hers and if Zayn notices, he doesn’t say anything. In fact, the tips of his fingers suddenly graze against her palm, like they’re reaching to pull her entire hand into his -but maybe that’s just the normal reaction to somebody’s hand in yours. Maybe it _is_ normal to feel a gravitational pull between skin. Maybe it _is_ normal to feel the force of it cause a heat wave through your bones. 

Or, maybe Zayn _does_ like her like Doniya said.  
But that seems crazier than anything else.

“S’good, yeah?” Zayn asks as she swallows down the chocolate. 

She nods and licks her lips. “Amazing.”

When they make their way to the mirror pool in Centenary Square, Alia starts to feel the start of a drizzle against her arms. And she looks out to the fountain in front of her, watching as she waits for ripples to form. Zayn looks up to the sky. 

“You feel it?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she answers, “I think it’s gonna start coming down soon.”

He looks back to her with a pout. “You wanna run back to the car or hop in somewhere?”

She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, although...I don’t think we’ll make it to the car.” She _knows_ they won’t make it, but she doesn’t want to seem too eager to extend her day with him.

“I say we make a break for it.” His eyes raise a daring challenge and his lips turn up at the corners, and Alia isn’t sure if he truly wants to go home, or if this is some game he wants to play with her. She _thinks_ it might be the latter, but she tries not to kid herself.

But then, Zayn extends his hand to her just like he did when they first arrived. Except this time it’s firm, confident. He wears a smile and his eyes gaze straight into hers, almost like they’re asking ‘ _what are you waiting for?’_ So she ignores the lingering thought that tells her _no_ , pushes it right out of her mind, and jumps into every other feeling that tells her _yes_. And when she puts her hand in his and sparks fly into her heart, she knows. She knows. 

They start toward the car in a brisk walk -hand in hand. Their shoulders are colliding into one another and they laugh as they speed toward the car park, but the rain starts to come down faster. Drop by drop, they feel the heaviness on their heads -see the thick spots of water fall before their eyes. Alia looks up to see it all start to come down, and, just like she knew it would, the sky starts to fall to the Earth. 

“Quick!” she yells to Zayn, “Inside!”

“What?”

She pulls him hard to their left, finding a door to a pull on, but as she tries to open it the door won’t budge. The shop is closed. 

“Fuck,” she hisses, the rain now hitting pins on their heads. This was a stupid idea.

“Here..here,” Zayn says, pulling her towards a tiny space between the buildings, a kind of makeshift wood canopy in between the two walls. It’s enough space to maybe fit a rubbish bin, which is what it’s probably used for, but Zayn squeezes them in. He pushes her back against the wall and he presses up against her. His arm reaches over her head to hold onto the wall, and his other gently slivers itself around her waist. 

Alia can’t breathe, her head as clouded as the sky above them. 

Zayn turns his face to hers. And he notices her parted lips and her short breath and she knows because his face changes then. He looks so different here -in this space. As she stares up at him, she sees the creases of his skin, the shape of his mouth change as he watches her. She can see the tightening of his brow, the slight shaking of his jaw. When his lips part just like hers, her body tells her to pull him closer, so she listens. Her hands pull at the hem of his t-shirt and she brings his hips to close the gap they have between them. 

She feels his heart against her chest racing ahead of hers, a pounding so fast that even _she_ can’t keep up.

“Alia,” he whispers, his voice strained and weak and everything she thought she knew about lust goes flying out the window. Who knew you could want to make love to a voice?

He leans in, then. She can feel the heat of his breath on her skin, the hairs on the back of her neck shooting up towards the clouds. There are goosebumps -everywhere. A fire spreads through her veins and sparks all the way through to her toes. And either she feels nothing, or everything all at once. But when he touches his mouth to hers, places their lips to perfectly fit together- like they were meant just for each other- there’s nothing else she can feel but him. 

When his hand above her head falls to cup under her chin, there’s nothing else she can feel. 

There’s nothing else she _wants_ to feel.

 

 

+++

 

 

When Zayn breaks the kiss, he doesn’t look into her eyes the way he did before he kissed her. The way Alia had hoped he would before he dove right back in to kiss her again. 

Instead, he turns completely away to look across the street and when she sees his eyes light up, Alia looks with him. It’s a café that looks open -a café that they can run into and wait for the storm to pass. 

“Wanna run for it?” he asks, still so tightly pressed against her. 

She doesn’t want to let go.

“Yeah,” she says, breathless. 

So they run. 

They run inside _Le Café Bleu_ and pretend like it never happened. Zayn buys her coffee and teases her about her see-through shirt as if they _didn’t_ just share a kiss across the street. But as they make themselves comfortable next to each other on the love seat by the window, immediately diving into conversation, Alia doesn’t seem to care what they pretend. She gets to be with _him_ , and to her, that’s all that really matters for now. 

 

 

+++

 

 

If Alia thought she was smitten before, she doesn’t know what she is now. There’s a heat in her stomach and a flush in her skin and it’s taking every ounce of self-control not to throw her arms around him and kiss him, again. She’s lost it, she knows, but everything about him has trapped her under a spell and she’s not so sure she wants to be saved. Because this feeling -like she can breathe underwater- is not a feeling that she wants to let go of. She listens to him talk and it’s like a song she wants to put on repeat, over and over. She sees the sparkle in his eyes and it’s like a rainbow in the midst of a sun shower. She accidentally catches her fingers in his and goosebumps cover her arms because this desire, this wanting someone so badly, it terrifies her. But then he says something ridiculous and laughs, and the fear subsides. Because his laugh is medicine. His laugh is medicine and his smile is home and Alia’s never felt so comfortable, so at ease. 

Alia has never believed in soulmates. She’s always thought it absurd to believe in one perfect person for everybody. But sitting here with Zayn, looking into his golden eyes and noticing the brown speck on his left iris, learning about his _Marvel_ obsession as she studies the way he takes his coffee, it’s like she can finally see everything so clearly.

It’s like finding your way out of a maze you thought would never end. It’s like fitting in the last piece of your thousand piece puzzle.

As they sit in the coffee shop, waiting for the rain to let up, Alia feels like this is exactly where she’s supposed to be. Her heartbeat almost whispering-

_I found you._  
_I’m home._

 

 

+++ 

 

 

The rain still falls as they pull up to the house, a tiny pattering against the roof of the car that fills the calm silence. They haven’t spoken a word since they drove off, but no words have needed to be spoken. As Zayn took off onto the road, he had subtly reached to take her hand in his, and when she allowed their fingers to slot together, he took their folded hands to his lap. 

They drove like that the entire way. 

Zayn puts the car in park, lets the engine idly hum as they both continue to sit there. He doesn’t release her hand. He makes no move to get out of the car. He sits there and thinks, and feels. He feels their fingers together and wants nothing more than to keep them intertwined until they physically can’t anymore- but. 

The truth of the matter, is that he can’t. Not really. 

He should’ve never let their kiss happen today. But she had been so beautiful, her wet dark hair sticking to her forehead and her eyes somehow brighter under the dark skies. Her touch like lightning on his skin, her lips a jolt of electricity that had sparked him back to life. 

He should’ve never let it happen. 

“Alia,” Zayn whispers, keeping his head straight forward.

She leans closer into him. “Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something.”

She pauses, but says, “Okay.” 

And it kind of breaks his heart to hear the _‘I already know’_ in her voice. But it’s not what she thinks she knows. Not even at all. 

He turns to her then, a well of sadness washing over him, and he fights the lodge in his throat. He just needs to say it. He needs to tell her the truth. She’ll hate him -will probably rip her hand right out of his and never speak to him again- but he needs to be honest. 

“Alia, I-”

She looks defeated, like she already knows what’s coming. Zayn wonders who hurt her to make her feel like this has anything to do with her. 

“Alia,” he says her name like it’s a statement. 

“What is it, Zayn?” She just wants this to be over with, he can tell. 

“Alia, I’m-”

She raises her brow. He just needs to say it.

“I’m-”

She nods, egging him on. 

“I’m, uh-”

“What?” she exasperates, “What are you?”

He sucks in a breath.

“I’m engaged.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any questions or comments or anything, you can find me at solomalik.tumblr.com! <3  
> thanks for reading!!


	3. Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn explains.

Zayn isn’t an asshole. At least, he tries his hardest not to be. He’s a sarcastic twat and if you cross him he’ll definitely come back at you, but Zayn would never intentionally be malicious. He’s much too soft for that. Even his father has told him how proud he is of his son for always being honest, for never throwing someone under the bus to get ahead. He’s had plenty of opportunities, of course. When he caught the son of the Dean at Oxford snorting cocaine in the loo, the same son of the Dean who was one point ahead of Zayn’s grade point average, Zayn could have easily called the police. He could have easily gotten rid of his competition and graduated _Valedictorian_ , _Oxford Class of 2014_. But Zayn isn’t an asshole. If he doesn’t deserve something then he doesn’t deserve it. He won’t sneak around and manipulate his way into jobs and awards that are clearly meant for somebody else. 

Zayn is honest. Zayn is _good_. It’s one of his traits that he’s actually proud of. 

But as he sits on the living room sofa at his home in Bradford, watching his mum cry as she asks _‘how- how can you be engaged to someone I don’t even know,’_ Zayn thinks he’s the biggest asshole on the planet. He doesn’t even want to think about Alia, the girl all alone upstairs in Doniya’s room, who had chosen to opt out of hearing his confession for the second time. He doesn’t blame her for hiding, either, because she must have known that when he told his family it would be a disaster. She must have known that his mum would break down in tears, that his father would pace the room biting his thumb and stroking his beard, that his older sister would have a fit and slap him across the head as she called him an _‘inconsiderate little shit.’_ She must have known, and maybe that’s why she convinced him to tell them at all. Maybe he deserves this. 

“How long, Zayn?” Yaser asks calmly, finally sitting himself on the ottoman but still biting his thumb. 

Zayn swallows. “A month.”

“A month?!” Trisha calls out and hangs her head in her hands. “Bismillah...bismillah.”

“Look I-” Zayn panics, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell any of you. I just didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” Doniya turns to her brother with an angry glare and Zayn cowers away from her, “Didn’t think we’d approve? Because you’re engaged to a fuckin’ gori?”

“Doniya,” Yaser warns, and Doniya looks at her mother. 

“Sorry.”

“No!” Zayn answers her but addresses his father, “No, of course it’s not that. It’s because I wasn’t. I’m _not_ \- even sure of anything myself. It’s not like any plans are being made or anything, it kind of just happened.”

“Oh!” Doniya waves her hands in the air, “it kind of just happened. The ring just _happened_ to slide on her finger. She just _happens_ to think you’re getting married.” She reaches out to smack him across the head again and she doesn’t miss. The _whack_ of it echoes against the walls. 

“Shit. I’m sorry, okay?!” He rubs his head and stands. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I met someone and I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about this. But now- now you know!”

“And what am I supposed to tell people, Zayn?” Trisha finally lifts her head. “When I tell them my son is engaged and they ask me about his fiancée, what am I supposed to say?”

“I-”

“You’re engaged to a girl that I didn’t even know existed until today. Do you understand how this makes me-” she puts a hand to her chest and closes her eyes. Zayn can see how hurt she is and he can feel himself welling up, his nostrils flaring as he feels the tears about to surface. 

Trisha takes a breath. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Zayn. Clearly you don’t want to talk to me, or any of your family, and that’s fine. But...I don’t have anything to say to you, either.”

She doesn’t even look at him as she gets up from her seat and heads up the stairs. He feels a tear fall down his cheek. 

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Doniya spits, following her mother.

The only one that remains now is his father. He stares directly at Zayn, the way he always does but- it feels off somehow. Usually Zayn feels a comfort when he looks at his dad -his father usually just nodding for a bit until he smiles in understanding. But now, he’s not even nodding. He’s even stopped stroking his beard and biting at his thumb. His hands are folded over his knees and Zayn sits back down, holding back sobs that threaten to escape him.

Yaser lets out a sigh. “I can’t figure this one out, Zayn.”

Zayn looks to him in confusion. 

He shrugs his shoulders. “I just don’t get it.”

“Baba-”

He holds up a hand. “I know that you love us. You work so hard to give us so much and what son would do that if he didn’t love his family? You’re a good boy, Zayn. A really, really good boy and I can’t tell you how proud I am to be your father.”

Zayn can’t help the tears from pouring out.

“But why,” he leans closer toward Zayn, his voice lowering almost to a whisper, “why you would keep something so big from us, I can’t understand. Why would my son -who travels the world and back for his family- not tell us that he’s in love? And really, I can only think of two options.” Yaser holds up a finger. “It’s either _A_ , because he is scared of what we might say about the girl he has chosen.” He holds up another. “Or _B_ , because he is scared of what _she_ might say about the family he has not.”

Zayn feels the color drain from his face, his gut being wrenched from his stomach.

“But I can’t seem to agree with either of those. Because you _know_ that we would always support you, no matter who you chose to bring home. You _know_ that in your heart, so it can’t be the first option. And the second, well. I get a feeling that you’re alright with us. I don’t think that you’re ashamed of where you come from, but- for the first time in my life, I could be wrong about you.”

“No baba,” Zayn shakes his head and sniffles, unable to even fathom how his father could ever think that, “you’re not wrong...you’re not wrong.”

Yaser shrugs and holds up his hands. “Then I don’t know, Zayn. I don’t know _why_ you choose to keep things from us. I get that it’s your life and that’s fine, but to not tell us something so massively a part of it.” He shakes his head, “I just don’t know.”

Zayn doesn’t know either. As he tries to scroll through the reasons in his head, he can’t seem to find one that makes sense.

Yaser slowly brings himself to a stand. “Think about these things, Zayn. Think about your mum- about how she must feel, that she barely knows her son, anymore.”

Zayn holds back a sob. “I’m-”

“Just think about it,” he bends over to press a kiss to Zayn’s head, “Think about it.”

His father leaves to the garden, leaving Zayn alone with his rampant thoughts. One right after another, they run across his head as they tell him how terrible he is -how much of an asshole he’s truly become. He’s tried so hard not to be that person with others -his friends, coworkers, mentors and bosses- but somewhere between all those people, he forgot about his family and how they deserve to know him, too. Just because he pays some of their bills doesn’t mean he isn’t their son anymore. They deserve to know what goes on his life just like everybody else. He feels like an idiot, a complete douchebag. 

Then he thinks about Alia -the way her cheeks had sunk and her jaw had slightly dropped when he told her. She had averted her gaze through the front window as her hand went limp in his grasp. He had expected her to pull away entirely then, but she had kept their hands together, kept her body leant into his, almost like if she had pulled away his words would become real. The space would exist between them and they would be nothing more than two people who had spent a day together. Zayn hadn’t wanted to feel that way, he doubted she had, as well. 

“Do your parents know?” she had asked.

He shook his head.

“Does anyone know?”

Again, he shook his head.

She sighed. “You have to tell them.”

“I know. I’ve been-”

“Your sister is going to freak out,” she had interrupted.

“Yeah...”

She looked to him then. “What is it with you?” she suddenly asked. And then, as he had expected her to just a moment before, she pulled away and leant against the side of the car. His eyes went wide as she continued, “Like. I get that you have a million things going on and you’re trying really hard to do right by your family, but. As you seem to have enough time to _fall in love_ with somebody, how is it, that you don’t have time to pick up the phone and call your sister, like, ever?”

His mouth had fallen agape. 

“How is it that you can _propose_ to somebody, but you can’t...you can’t just shoot over a text and say _‘Hey, Don. I met someone!’_ ”

“Alia-”

“How is it, _Zayn_ , that in the two years that I’ve known your sister, you haven’t so much as called to ask how she’s doing?”

Zayn hadn’t known how to respond, how to react. His brain seemed to have turned into mush. 

“Alia, it’s not that simple.”

She laughed. “Not that simple?! Zayn, it’s the easiest thing in the world. My family lives across the ocean and I talk to my parents _every week_. I talk to _all five_ of my brothers at least once a month.”

Zayn shook his head. “But that’s- that’s you. Not me.”

“And what’s so different between you and me?”

“I’m- I have things going on..”

“And I don’t?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Zayn, I barely know you,” she started to say, “but I know your sister, your family. I know what it’s been like for them to have you gone.”

Zayn fought to register her words. 

“You’re like a ghost to them. They talk about you like you’re somebody they used to know. It’s all wondering where you are and how you’re doing, they even ask each other _‘Have you heard from Zayn?’_ because no one ever has.”

She had shook her head and pushed the handle of the door to start her way up to the house. “I know what you’re trying to do for them. I get it, and honestly, it’s a very beautiful thing. But that’s not enough Zayn. Just because you pay off some of their bills doesn’t show the love that I _know_ you have for them. You have to _show_ you care.”

She opened the door into the drizzle. “You have to tell them.” 

And then she had gone. She had lifted her hair into a bun and dashed up the drive, knocking on the door until Safaa had let her in. 

Zayn sat there for awhile, utterly dumbfounded at how she had responded. She hadn’t asked what he thought she would ask, like who his fiancée was, where he had met her, how long they had been together. She hadn’t called him an asshole for _kissing her_ while engaged to somebody else. All she had cared about was his family, how _they_ would feel once he told them.

He feels like maybe she knows his own family better than he does. He also feels like he owes her an apology. 

When the beat of his heart calms to a steady pace, like the click of a metronome underneath his chest, Zayn stands. He brushes the hair out of his eyes and takes a deep long breath that travels through his entire body, his mind almost falling into slow-motion before the breath is over. But then he’s normal, and as soon as he is, he climbs the stairs -making his way to the girl that deserves more than he’s given her. 

He gets to Doniya’s bedroom door before he’s thought of what to say. So he takes a moment to think, pauses just outside the ivory door, clenching and unclenching his fingers as he bites on his tongue. There are a million things he’d like to say- about how it was all...how he just...that there isn’t...maybe he has nothing to say at all. But he needs to say something, _anything_. So his fingers ball into a fist and he raps on the door. _One, two, three._ He knocks in time with the beat of his heart. 

As much as he’d like to think he is, Zayn isn’t very good at these things. On paper, he sounds like a fucking scholar. Somehow his words flow together like a river and it sounds so perfectly eloquent that everyone seems to believe everything he has to say. It’s a gift, he knows, and he never fails to utilize that gift when he has the opportunity to. If he could write everything down right now, if he could hand Alia a perfectly thought out letter, words carefully crafted and placed to sound like the brilliant genius he pretends to be, he would. But he doesn’t have that option right now. He has to say the words, out loud. And as much as he’d like to think it’s the same, that he doesn’t stumble over his consonants and use _‘uh’_ way too often between thoughts, it’s not. His palms sweat when he realizes he might as well put his foot in his mouth now and get it over with. 

Doniya suddenly opens the door. Her eyebrows raise when she sees that it’s Zayn and she puts a hand on her hip, keeping the door pressed to her side. 

“What do you want, then?” she asks. 

Zayn swallows. “I, uh- I’d like to talk to Alia.”

Doniya turns her head behind the door, then snaps back to him. “She’s busy.”

“No, she isn’t.” Zayn surprises himself when his words come out as firm as they do.

“Would you rather me tell you that she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

“Don, come on. Let me-” Zayn puts a hand to the door but before he can push it open, it’s being whipped away from his palm. Alia appears behind Doniya then, hair swept up from her face and eyes bright and she looks like maybe she’s showered and rested since supper. A thin grey jumper flows far past her hips and black leggings hug tightly to her legs and this would be a lot easier if she _wasn’t_ so naturally gorgeous. She doesn’t even have to try and Zayn feels blessed just standing in front of her. 

“It’s okay, Don,” Alia looks to his sister, “I got this.” She puts a hand to her shoulder and before Doniya disappears back into her room, she gives Zayn a long hateful glare. He guesses he deserves that. 

Alia turns to him with a sigh. “What’s up, Zayn?”

“I,uh,” he stutters, and of course he does, “I- wanted to talk to you.”

She raises her brow as if to give him the _‘go ahead.’_

“Privately?”

Her mouth presses into a hard line as she moves into the hall and closes the door behind her. Her arms cross over her chest. 

“I meant, like. Can we, uh, go- somewhere else?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Zayn points to the door down the hall. “My room’s just there?”

Alia laughs, but when Zayn doesn’t get the joke, she turns serious. “Wait, you’re not kidding?”

“No?”

She sighs again and rolls her eyes. “Whatever, let’s just make this quick.”

Zayn gets it then -she hates him. He doesn’t blame her. 

She follows him to his door and when he opens it, he lets her walk in ahead of him. Zayn flicks the switch with a loud click as he turns on the light. Alia’s arms fall to her sides and her shoulders drop, and Zayn stares at her as she makes her way across his room to find his old desk -his old desk with his old framed pictures and his first grade _Spelling Bee_ award. He thinks he sees the corner of her lips twitch to turn into a smile. But she holds it back when she lifts her head to him as she sits in the rolling black desk chair. 

“Okay,” she huffs, leaning to press her forearms to her knees, “what do you want to talk about?”

Zayn sits on the edge of his bed, inhaling a breath before he starts. He doesn’t look at her, but rather, keeps his focus on her feet across from him. 

“I just, wanted to apologize.” A good start, he thinks.

“For?”

Shit. “For? Oh, for, uh. For not telling you that I’m. That I’m...”

“Engaged?” 

When he lifts his gaze to hers, he half expects to see an icy stare. But it’s blank, void of any emotion.

“Yeah,” he breathes, nodding. “Yeah.”

“Is that what you needed to bring me here for?” 

He bites his lip. “No, I wanted to- to explain myself.”

She leans back in the chair. It rolls a little bit to the right, and he fights a smile as he watches her fix it back into position. 

“Look,” he starts, folding his hands together on his lap, “what happened today, between me and you. That wasn’t- I shouldn’t have let it happen. I know that. It was a...a moment of weakness.”

She tilts her head.

Zayn can feel a tingling in the tips of his fingers. “It’s no- I mean, I find you. Like, really. You’re, well.” He lifts his head to the ceiling and shakes his head. Why couldn’t he have been blessed with the art of speech?

“You’re beautiful, okay?” He blurts out, suddenly, and he can feel the blood rush to his cheeks like a wire lit with a spark. “And you’re funny and sweet and I like you so when you looked up at me like all you wanted was for me to-” he swallows to clear the dryness of his throat and looks straight to her, “I’m sorry.”

She remains silent, and he thinks _the neighbors_ must be able to hear the pounding of his heart. 

“I’ve never cheated,” he continues to explain, “I’m not- I’m not that guy, okay? I don’t want you to think that I am.”

She continues to stare blankly. 

“But you make me feel...I’ve never...”

“Stop,” she sits straight then and Zayn’s heart skips a beat when she speaks, “I don’t need you to pretend that there’s anything here, Zayn, okay?”

Zayn furrows his brow. He wasn’t-

“Like you said. It was just a moment of weakness. You’re probably just scared of the _‘one woman for the rest of your life’_ thing, I get it.”

“Alia-”

“It was just a kiss, Zayn. Who cares. Let’s just forget it, okay?”

Zayn shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t-”

“Zayn.”

He presses his lips together.

“We’ve known each other for a day. _Literally_ , twenty-four hours.”

_Then why does it feel like forever?_ Zayn wants to ask. He doesn’t, of course.

“So let’s just, put this behind us. It’s not like it’s going to matter anyway.”

“What?”

She sighs. “I leave to Manchester tomorrow. I’m probably _never_ going to see you again.”

“I’m going to work on that.”

Alia laughs and suddenly Zayn is scooting closer to her. “No, Alia. That’s also what I needed to talk to you about.”

It’s slow, but she calms to a silence.

“I wanted to, to thank you. For making me realize what a terrible son and brother I’ve been.”

“Zayn,” she starts, “you’re not terri-”

“No, no I am. You’re right, a son _is_ more than just paying off some bills.”

This time, Alia can’t fight the small smile on her lips. 

“I’m really going to make the effort.”

“Good, Zayn, that’s good.”

He smiles, and then suddenly, something pulls on his heart. Like a string being pulled from his chest, everything seems to unravel and open up underneath. When he sees Alia, and the pride in her eyes, it’s- it’s something he can’t explain. But he tries to, anyway.

“It wasn’t just a kiss, Alia,” he suddenly says, and meets with her gaze directly. Her dark brown eyes seem to melt in his. “And I’m not going to pretend like you’re just some random girl I’ve known for a day.”

Her lips part just like they did when he had her pushed up against the wall -when their breath had synced together and all he had known was that her body against his felt like lightning. 

“You know more about my family than I do. You seem to- you seem to know more about _me_ than I do. And when I saw you for the first time yesterday, I thought _‘fuck, I never want to stop looking at this girl.’”_  

He reaches for her hands and she lets him fold their fingers together. He pulls her, along with the desk chair, closer to the bed.

“You need to know. My engagement, it’s not anything that...it’s complicated is what it is. It wasn’t this thing that I had planned, it just sort of happened.”

Alia looks like she wants to ask him about it -her eyes questioning and confused- but, she seems too stunned in his grasp to even muster up a word. 

Zayn sighs. “She just, she’s just been there you know? In the beginning, after we met, it’s not like we dated. We just became good friends. She was there when I needed to vent about classes or...when I needed to just chill, or when- when I needed human contact from holing up in a café all fucking day. And then after a few months...one night...she said that she loved me...like, _loved me_. And what could I do? Tell one of my really good friends that I didn’t love her?”

Alia lets go of a breath as Zayn takes one in.

“So it just happened.”

Finally, Alia gathers up the ability to speak again. “Wait,” she says, shaking her head, “you asked your friend to marry you cause you couldn’t tell her you didn’t love her?” 

“No, no. I mean, our relationship just kind of happened. We got together.” 

Alia nods. 

“Then everything got all complicated. Suddenly, when I wasn’t with _her,_ I was apparently with other girls. Or like, when I would go out with the boys and not tell her, I was the worst boyfriend known to mankind. Everything changed.”

“So then...”

“Because, Alia,” Zayn answers, knowing what she’s about to ask, “She was the only real comfort I _had_ for the past year. I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to lose coming home to cooked food or a body to hold or a shoulder to cry on. I didn’t want to lose her and I...I had sort of learned to love her almost like she loved me?”

“So you asked her to marry you because you _sort of_ almost loved her?” Alia tries to reason, and Zayn squeezes her hands tighter in his. 

“No, Alia. I asked her to marry me because she threatened to walk out of my life.”

Zayn shakes his head. “I came home one night, kind of...stoned. I had been smoking with one of my mates, and that was nothing new, I did that all the time. But when I walked through the door, she was waiting there for me. I felt like I was in sixth form again coming home late to mum or summat. Anyway, she started screaming. Told me that I was a fucking prick for never telling her where I was, and that for all _she_ knew, I was fucking some other bird. She was fucking paranoid out of her mind. I thought _she_ was the high one.”

“Fuck,” Alia breathes.

“So she said that she was done with it. Done with _me_. That she was going to leave me all alone. That I’d _always_ be alone because of how terrible of a person I was.”

“Zayn, that’s...”

“So, me. Being high as a fucking kite, just kind of broke down. I told her right then. I just said, _‘Marry me.’”_ He lowers his gaze as he pictures the moment in his head -his knees on the cold tile of his flat as he bent to her feet- and he chuckles, “What I meant to say, was _‘stay with me.’”_

“Zayn,” Alia whispers, “that. Is-”

“Crazy?”

She nods, and when Zayn peers up into her eyes, he can see the softness in them. The same softness she had had earlier that day, when he had tried to convince her that the past four years of his life had been the reason he’d been so distant. In truth, he sees now, is that it was his inability to see that love is more than just giving _things_ \- but the act of giving a little bit of yourself, no matter how scary that thought might be.

“It wasn’t just a kiss Alia,” he says, so low he can feel it in his abdomen, “And you’re not just someone I _happened_ to meet.”

The pounding of his heart is probably audible from fucking space, now. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have let it happen,” he continues, “but I don’t think it was something I could control, either.”

“Zayn,” she says his name in a breathless whisper and it floats into his skin, resonates in his bones. He wants her to say his name. Again, and again and again. 

“There’s something here, I know it. I can _feel_ it.”

“Zayn.”

“And I know that you might hate me for not telling you the truth, but I’m telling the truth now. I like you. A lot. And I know I’ve only known you for a day, but sometimes. Sometimes you just know.”

Her breath comes up short. “You’re...you’re mad.”

“Maybe. But I wasn’t going to let you go home without knowing how I feel.”

She swallows down a lump in her throat and stares into his eyes. She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. Her hands in his feel like he’s carrying the entire world in his palms. He never wants to let go, that is- until she’s leaning into him and pressing her lips on his. Then it’s like a shock to the heart as he heaves closer toward her, closing his eyes as he brings a hand to wrap around her neck. 

He never wants to let go. 

But eventually, she _does_ pull away. Although, she doesn’t move far as she presses her forehead to his and wraps her trembling fingers around his neck, her touch hotter than the sun.

“I- I like you, too,” she whispers. And Zayn thinks that if nothing else comes of this, at least he gets to hold on to that.

“Yeah?”

She nods, pulling farther away from him and suddenly, it’s like miles between them. “But,” she sighs, “you’re engaged.”

“I know.”

“So nothing. Nothing can happen between us.”

He nods, because he gets it. He’s not an idiot. 

“If things were different...”

“Yeah.” He continues to nod. 

“But that’s something _you_ have to work out.”

“I know.”

“We can- we can be friends, though?” It comes out as a question and Zayn smiles. Of course they can be friends. He wouldn’t want anything less. 

“Yeah, we can be friends,” he agrees. 

She scoots back from him then and puts up a fist. And Zayn laughs, shaking his head as he makes a fist to meet hers in midair. 

“Totally bros, yeah?” she chuckles.

If ‘ _totally bros’_ means wanting to kiss the other until their mouths turn raw and the entire world around them becomes extinct then yeah _,_ Zayn agrees, totally bros _._

“Totally,” he laughs. 

They sit in silence for awhile after that, just kind of looking at each other as they wait for the other to make the final move. Zayn waits for Alia to stand and give him a quick ‘ _goodnight’_ before she’s out the door, but, she makes no sign of even _wanting_ to go. The silence grows longer, and when it drags almost into awkward, a smile starts to form on Alia’s lips and Zayn can’t help but mirror it. 

“Do you-”

“Would you-”

They laugh together when they both speak at the same time. Zayn waves for Alia to speak first. 

“Do you want to just- hang out for awhile?” she asks, shrugging.

Zayn smiles. “I was gonna say. Would you want to stay here with me for a bit?”

Alia nods, and Zayn pats the bed next to him as he scoots himself back to lean against the pillows. And without even a thought Alia climbs next to him on the full bed, bringing her knees into her chest as he reaches for his remote to turn on the television. _South Park_ begins, and Alia tells him that if he changes it she’ll kick him. Zayn thinks Alia might be his soulmate. 

“Would be great if we had a joint right now,” Alia says, sinking down lower onto the bed and tucking her legs underneath his comforter. 

“Ramadan literally ended yesterday, Alia.”

“ _Yesterday_ being the operative word.”

“Jesus,” he rolls his eyes, so amused by her that his heart fills with butterflies, “go to sleep.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she smiles, and punches him lightly on the arm. 

It’s like they’ve been best friends since the beginning of time. 

But when one episode turns into four, and midnight turns into two, Zayn realizes just how much of a best friend she _isn’t_. He wants so much more- to know her so much more. When she leaves her hand to rest on his stomach, he realizes how _well_ he wants to know that hand, how he wants to study her body -discover every inch of her skin. She’s not his best friend, she never will be. 

And when she falls asleep on his chest -when the rhythm of her breath connects with the beat of his heart- he knows. He knows that they will never be _‘just friends.’_ Not here, not now, not ever. 

 

 

 

+++

 

 

When they say goodbye the next morning, Zayn pulls Alia into a hug and when his hands brush against the small of her back she swears her entire body goes into shock. His thin fingers curl against her skin, where her short white tee has ridden up just enough for him to tuck his hands underneath it, and a jolt shoots through to her heart, she’s sure. 

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?” he whispers in her ear and she nods against his shoulder where she rests her chin for a moment in their embrace.

“That’s all up to you, though, isn’t it?” she whispers back, and he giggles just loud enough for her to hear. 

“I’m gonna be better.”

She pulls away, although she keeps her hands held to his arms. “I hope so, Zayn,” she beams and Zayn smiles back.

He pulls her back into another hug, tighter this time. “Thanks, again.”

“Anytime,” she squeezes out the word as he holds her so tightly that she fights for a breath to leave her lungs.

“I’ll text you,” Zayn says, finally releasing her so that she can step away and protect herself from any other hug he might pull her into.

She laughs. “We’ll see.”

Alia gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before saying her goodbyes to the rest of the Malik family. Trisha seems sad as she kisses Alia goodbye, although Yaser is his usual cool and collected self as he gives her a tight hug, not unlike his son’s. Safaa and Waliyha give her a kiss on the cheek. 

“Maybe next time,” Waliyha says to Alia, as she had planned to leave with them back to Manchester for a fortnight before school started again. Trisha had told her that it was best she stayed home until she could go with her. 

When all the goodbyes are said and done, Doniya and Alia head into the station. But before Alia disappears behind the brick wall, she turns to look at _him_ one last time. Because she knows, deep in her heart, that this will be it. He will go back to London, get married, and never speak to her again. He can promise her all he wants that he’ll be better but- Alia knows that everything is easier said than done, that old habits die hard. And if anyone should know about that, it’s her- her throat right in that moment itching for a line of smoke. But she stifles that desire somewhere else, just like she has for the past month. Just like she will continue to do, no matter how much the burn calls out for her. 

Zayn stands with his hands tucked in his jean pockets, his midnight black hair draping over the side of his face as he watches her climb the stone grey steps into the station. He doesn’t smile, or frown, but the way he watches her leave- it’s like she’s on a stage, the spotlight only on her. There’s nowhere else he’s looking. And when his family piles back into the van, Zayn doesn’t budge. He’s a statue among the bustle around him. 

Alia gives him a small smile. All he gives in return is a dip of his chin. 

Alia has known goodbyes. When two of her brothers joined the _Marines_ , she thought that would be the hardest goodbye she would ever have to give. But then she left America to start a new life somewhere else, and when she had hugged her baba before she went through airport security, she thought never would a goodbye tear her apart that way again. When she flew home for her grandfather’s funeral, as they put his body into the ground Alia thought never again would a goodbye crush her heart into a thousand pieces. 

She knows now not to underestimate _goodbyes._  

Because as Zayn becomes a phantom behind the frosted glass windows of the station, something in her snaps like a broken twig.   
It’s like finding yourself at a dead end, like losing yourself in the middle of the crowd. 

She feels lost, the whirling in her head almost screaming:

_Come back._  
_Come back._

 

 

+++

 

 

When she’s gone from his sight, Zayn releases the breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. He clears his throat and licks his lips, clenches and unclenches his fingers, blinks once, twice, three times- just to bring him back from the trance he had lost himself in. It was like watching a little bit of himself walk away and it’s crazy, he knows, but when his heart felt like it wanted to lurch out of his chest it was like she had tied one end of a string around it and attached herself to the other. 

He feels like static. He has to shake himself back to normal. 

But he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel normal, at least, not until he sees her again. So he promises himself, just like he promised her, that he will be better. He’ll call his mum on Wednesdays after she’s taken the girls to school, and _Skype_ with his sisters on the weekends, and text Doniya when he’s drunk because he knows how much she’d love it. He _will_ do all of these things and he promises himself right there and then- he _will_ be better. Because Alia- Alia makes Zayn want to be better. 

Zayn wonders if this is what falling in love feels like. But he laughs that thought away. 

It’s not possible.    
It’s not fucking possible. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I hope you guys are enjoying it so far! Stay tuned for the next part...I honestly can't wait to show you what happens! <3 Any comments or questions or anything, you can find me at solomalik.tumblr.com.


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